The winter holiday season is upon us. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and everything in between. The holidays are a time of celebration and can be especially welcome in the Northern Hemisphere where the hours of daylight steadily decrease and the temperatures drop. While these festive days can be hard, they also represent an opportunity to gather with the people we care most about.
And eat! Let’s be honest: one of the best parts about the holidays are the meals. For two months, diets slip away (or go out the window entirely), replaced by a generous spread of appetizers, entrees, sides, drinks, and desserts. Sure, it’s a lot of food, but there’s always that New Year’s Resolution at the end to help shave the calories back off.
Different people handle the foods differently. Perhaps you are all about “traditional” foods on traditional days, such as the signature turkey on Thanksgiving or a ham on Christmas. Or maybe you’re all about bucking the trends, either by making your own favorite meals … or letting someone else do it.
No matter your preferences, we’d love to hear about them. What are your favorite holiday foods, especially where Aldi is involved?
Let us know in the comments. We’ll be chiming in, too.
Roast turkey is a must for our family, both at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually I do all the cooking myself, but this year we ordered carry-out from the local diner (the best restaurant in town). I will buy ingredients for the side dishes at Aldi, but almost never buy the turkey there, especially at Thanksgiving, because the local supermarkets usually have a “loss leader” sale on turkey then (f.ex., this year it was 49 cents/pound with a $35 min. purchase). I’m slightly more likely to buy the Christmas turkey at Aldi, though, because turkey isn’t as universally popular as the main course for Christmas dinner, and therefore doesn’t get discounted as much.
Carry-out sounds fun! My family’s done that a few times on holidays. Was it still traditional Thanksgiving foods or something else?
Mostly similar to what I would have cooked myself: pre-sliced turkey breast (instead of a whole roasted turkey), stuffing (different choice of veggie/fruit add-ins than what I would have used), “smashed” potatoes (I usually make a big batch of the instant flakes), chicken gravy (I buy canned/jarred beef gravy), house-made sliced bread (I usually buy King’s Hawaiian Rolls or something similar, such as the Aldi dupe). The cole slaw & whole-kernel corn in the carry-out meal would have been praline-topped sweet potato casserole and a mustard potato salad, had I been cooking. I bought my own cranberry sauce, and supplemented the carry-out pumpkin pie with ready-made Dutch apple and “brownie lava” pies from the local supermarket bakery. (If the nearest Aldi were in our town, I could have bought the cranberry sauce and additional pies there — but it’s a 20-mile drive each way to Aldi, while the local supermarket is just 1 block from my house.)
Sounds delicious! And hopefully you get an Aldi store closer to you sometime soon!
We have an Aldi warehouse in our town (which probably services the 2 closest Aldi stores). I represented the local public library board when the relevant taxing bodies met (at least 20 years ago) to vote on giving Aldi heavily-discounted property taxes for the warehouse’s first 3 years, and I indicated that my yes vote was tied to a request for an Aldi store in our town as well — but no Aldi store has been built here since then.
Thanksgiving ham French Canadian style , Thanksgiving turkey that my son spatchcocked and cooked using my latest Cooks Magazine recipe ( next year we’ll make the stuffing separately , and put root vegetsbles under the turkey instead of the stuffing , as cooking the stuffing under the turkey made it too moist and fatty for our taste ), sweet potato casserole, steamed green beans, and German apple pie .
My husband and I usually have turkey for Thanksgiving, but Christmas dinner is open for innovation. At one of the most memorable dinners I served the frozen cooked half ducks from Aldi. Wonderful! Tender, flavorful, easy. A delight! Since then, every holiday I look eagerly for the ducks in Aldi, but so far I have been disappointed. I keep the fingers crossed that I will find them again!
Our local Aldi stores are currently carrying whole frozen ducks for the holiday season. Hope you’re able to find some in your area!
I look forward to having Turkey along with Aldi’s Specially Selected Lemon and Thyme stuffing !!! It is the best stuffing ever and so is the Garlic and Rosemary !!! Yum !!!
I think the lemon and thyme stuffing is made with brioche? I agree it’s very good!
I ordered last week (I use instacart) and I just cooked a duck, sort of as a ‘test run’. I liked it! I didn’t use the orange sauce (I did a plum sauce instead) but it’s as easy as a chicken and more interesting than turkey, lol!
I also get the prosciutto/salami wrapped mozzarella, which is great with cocktails, and the lobster and crab dips are great too.
A plum sauce sounds a lot better than that orange sauce packet that’s included with the duck. Those wrapped mozzarella sticks are always a favorite among my family, too!
ALDI smoked salmon is a must. Also the Specialty cheese assorment, lobster and crab dips, brie, smoked gouda, Mexican corn dip, Tzataki (sp?) round out hors d’oeures.
That Mexican street corn dip is one of our favorites!
We often do a nontraditional meal with baked ham and cheese sliders (with seasoned butter poured over them prior to baking), homemade baked mac and cheese, deviled eggs, shrimp with cocktail sauce, and Rich and Charlie’s Salad (a Pasta House-style salad with artichoke hearts and a creamy Italian dressing). Desserts are often pie, cheesecake, ice cream, or whatever sounds good.
My husband’s family used to sometimes serve crab legs and steak, and we’ve done that some but not often.
Everything usually comes from Aldi except the artichoke hearts for the salad, because I’ve found Aldi artichoke hearts to have more tough pieces compared to other brands.
Always like something nice for the holiday season like maybe some of Aldi’s baked Italiano Lasagna and maybe for dessert some of the nice Iced Lemon cookies along with a warm cup of coffee with Aldi’s Coconut coffee creamer in it. Oh, but wait, these items seemed to have disappeared from Aldi’s shelves, and no, they’re not “Aldi’s Finds”. It baffles me that when I and others find foods we like a lot at Aldi’s they seem to go away for some reason, just frustrating. I would shop there a lot more often if this wasn’t the case.
Our Aldi’s used to carry their beef tenderloin all year but this year, it disappeared only to reappear a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. We stocked up because that is our Christmas tradition to serve along with a ham, peel and eat shrimp, lobster (using the frozen langostinos from Aldi) with mac and cheese. Veggie sides vary and we serve lots of appetizers because we have kind of an open house all day. People drop by, snack, play games-always a great day!
Appetizers are our favorites on holidays!
The frozen sweet potatoes casserole with praline. Wish it was sold all year long!!
For many decades our traditional Xmas dinner was always a roast goose (a la Dickens), but both last year & this year the price of goose has absolutely skyrocketed (like to $133.00, which is too rich for my blood). Thus, as I we did last year, roast duck will be this years main, so if Aldi continues to offer them, that’s what I’ll be making.
For many years I roasted a goose (at intervals pouring off the abundant grease to use later for mashed potatoes) but this year a duck is more likely. No orange sauce packet, though. Julia Child’s recipe is better—and worth the labor.
Definitely!! I always made my goose using Julia’s “steam-roasted” method with her Port Wine gravy on the side. This year I’m thinking of making a combo Port Wine/cherry gravy on the side for the duck (or ducks). I can’t glaze the whole duck with a sauce because I need plain leftover duck for my New Year’s Day French Cassoulet.
I have not bought a lot of Aldi products, just started shopping there more regularly since they got self-checkout. Before that, I dreaded going there for the few items i needed and standing in line behind cartloads.
Anyway, I tried their pie crust for my pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving. Oh my, it was perfect and half the price of the big name brand and much better than a store brand that I tried earlier this year.